Lord Waheed Alli is the youngest member of House of Lords and meeting him has always been a pleasure whenever you meet him he makes you feel very welcome and puts you at ease straight away.

It must be his unpretentious personality, which has not only made him a friendly and powerful media tycoon but also a very active and highly respected member of House of Lords. Lord Alli has been in the media most of his life but the unusual thing is there is not much known about him, and he does not give interviews ever so this is the first ever exclusive interview given by him to the media.

He tops the richest British Asian list as top 10 Asian success stories and is considered as an Icon for not only the young British Asians but also for the young people in the country generally.

I bumped into him few times at the House of Lords and never let an opportunity go by asking him for a formal interview he always said yes he will give me a time and eventually one day his PA phoned and confirmed the time of meeting with Lord Waheed Alli at the house of Lords.

I arrived at the House of Lords promptly and waited in the lobby where the one of the staff greeted me with a smile and asked me to wait and he will contact Lord Waheed Alli and inform him of my arrival while sitting there in the "lobby of power" so to speak I saw many a power full lords passing through it was more like who's who than anything else.

There was Lord Sainsbury walking around Lord Nigel Lawson was waiting for someone and Peter Haines the foreign office minister was there too talking to another Lord the place was a buzz with flavour of Power and there was the little powerless me standing in the middle of all this might.

Eventually Lord Waheed Alli appeared from the main chamber of House of Lords at the exact time which his PA had given me I was very impressed with the time keeping it indicates how well organised a person is.

He greeted me with a smile and asked me to accompany him to one of the House of Lords studios where the interview was going to take place, The studio room was very impressive and all the high tech facilities were there Lord Alli indicated that he might have to leave in the middle of the conversation because a vote in the House of Lords was taking place and if the bell rang than he will go cast his vote and return afterwards.

We started the conversation with love of his life, which is travelling around the world, and how he enjoys meeting different people in various countries and how he is fascinated by their cultural richness.

Shahid : Lord Ali please tell us a little about yourself your background, where you come from? What's your origin? What are you?

Lord Ali : My great grand parents came from India they had great pioneering spirits and they left India a very long time ago to find work to ensure the future of their generations to come my Mothers family ended up in Trinidad and my fathers family went to Guyana in South America and that pioneering spirit must have been passed on to my Mother and Father they left in late 50,s for England to come and look for work.My mother is a Nurse and my Father is a mechanic, my parents were lodging in Brixton in different houses while going through training and met as they lived opposite each other hence the story of my life began.

In those days people from other countries living in UK used to look after each other, help and share their happiness and sorrows which made that time a very special era, People had time for each other which made it worthwhile living in a cold and strange country and my Mom and Dad grew up together in that wonderful time (as my mother tells me) and their relationship grew much stronger and than they got married.Things, which shaped up my life, were the Indian music, festivals and of course the biggest impact was cricket and surrounded with all this I grew up in south London. I had a very happy childhood and I grew up with two of my brothers, Life was going along smoothly but my parents grew apart and eventually split up that had a profound impact on our lives, my father was not in a position to support us financially so I had to grow up in a hurry and assume the responsibility of looking after my brothers and helping my Mom I thoroughly enjoyed the responsibility and that gave me a direction and commitment to work hard and create my own space.

Shahid : Do you resent that your father did not support the family and you had to grow up quickly to assume responsibilities?

Lord Ali : No not at all it certainly was a painful experience to go through but it made me more responsible and I started taking things more seriously earlier on in life than I normally would have.

My Father at that stage just disappeared and I had to get a job so I went along to the local job centre I noticed two jobs one for a trainee solicitor for which I did not have the proper qualifications and other job was to as a researcher for a financial magazine.

I went along to the magazines office and met a most wonderful Asian man Salem Ghayar you could not possibly meet a better person in your life when he interviewed me something must have happened he looked at me and said you look very bright and I am going to give you a chance to prove me right and all through my career their he helped me as our community people used to help each other and I am not so sure if that happens anymore. Anyhow Salem was wonderful to me he supported me and by working very hard and putting my emphasis in my work I made sure that I make him proud of my work.

I worked there for 3 or 4 years and thoroughly enjoyed my time there my job was to produce monthly financial reports and send them out to various potential investment bankers and one day out of the blue I got a letter from Save & prosper which is part of Robert Fleming investment bank inviting me to join them as head of their financial research department, I thought they had written to me by mistake so I contacted them and said that I think you have made a mistake but they said that its you who writes the financial reports ?
And I said yes and they said its you we want and please come and see us I was over the moon for being headhunted for such a senior position.

So I went along to see Save & Prosper and they said the job was mine provided I took my Earring off I was flabbergasted and told them that I am not willing to take my Earring of for any job because if they want me they will have to accept me for what I am if today it's the Earring than tomorrow it could
be other things like the colour of my skin or my faith or my beliefs. But eventually they reverted and said they be happy to have me with the Earring so that was a start of another chapter of my life.

Few years there and than I was invited back to my original company as head of research department I went back and after a while I was asked to join the board of the financial magazine and that's when I started to earn lots of money by this time my brother whom I was supporting all along finished his studies and for the first time ever my salary was my own and I was happy to have flexibility in my life. By now I was financially well off so I decide to give up my job and do a bit of travelling which was my first love and maybe get some more qualifications I did some travelling but at this stage couple of my friends Bob Geldof and Charlie Parsons launched a media company called Planet24 and asked me to join the company on the commercial side which I did and the company was very successful and we enjoyed the success thoroughly.

Shahid: Why did you give up Planet24?

Lord Ali : We sold Planet24 two years ago for the simple reason that elections were coming along and I was putting lots of effort into victory for labour party which is my other love apart from travelling and I did not feel it to be appropriate that a public company was paying me while my heart and soul at that time was devoted for the Labour Party so we sold Planet24 for tens of millions of pounds. And that gave me a chance to concentrate on committing more time and effort for the labour party and winning elections.

Shahid : What would you say to young British Asian who are trying hard to make it in their carriers.

Lord Ali.
The first thing I would say to them would be never to give up your ambitions and when faced with barriers work even harder to achieve your goals there are a lot of people who would put up hurdles in your way but fortunately there are many more who would help you along the way which usually balances it out so I would say just stick to your guns and work even harder and never give up because the people who want you not to fail they would want you to give up.

Despite what prejudices you come across just be committed to your cause and be truthful to yourself and you will succeed.

Shahid
The young generations are generally disillusioned politically what is your message for them

Lord Ali.
I would say to them again that do not be disillusioned by the political system in this country this may not be a perfect system but this is the only one we have and if you want to bring changes within the system than you have to be in it.

You cannot change a system effectively by staying out of it so please join a political party, any political party, Naturally it would be better if they joined the labour party for the simple reason that it's the party of fairness and equal opportunities and it's the party, which truly represents the young generations. This is the only party, which has paid attention to all segments of the Society.

Shahid
You mentioned Labour party and its achievements would you please elaborate on this issue?

Lord Ali
Yes of course, starting from the point of view of the Asian community if you were an Asian and were trying to bring a partner or a spouse from Asian Countries there was the rule that it was up to the applicants to prove genuineness of their relationship where as that rule did not apply to the white applicants.This was one of the first actions of labour government to abolish this rule and bring respect and equality to visa applicants.

Labour Government committed itself to equality and same rule of law for everyone and has proved that by bringing rules in line. Other achievements of labour government include Lowest inflation for 30 years. Over one million children taken out of poverty 2 million pensioners with minimum income guarantees. One million new jobs with New Deal 1600 new nurses. Improved law and order in Great Britain. Every community in Britain has benefited from sensible labour Government by investing in the British People it has improved our standing in the world community as a world leader, which cares for people. The emphasis will always remain on our people the labour is dedicated to investing in retraining of people providing every opportunity for people to benefit from the economic success.

Shahid
Lord Ali you are a self declared Gay person what is your stand on this issue?

Lord Ali.
Yes I am gay and I am very proud of it. These are personal choices it has nothing to do with how a person becomes by having certain choices in their lives. I know in this day and age still there are prejudices and stereo types even in this society but by having a choice different than the majority does not make you lesser of a person, I believe life is all about choices I chose to be gay and I am very comfortable with it, I believe in God I pray to God and my God responds like any other believers God does. In God's eyes we are all equal and I have a very deep faith in prayer and its impact on ones life God teaches you to be fair to everyone and I feel I am on the right path By being open about it I think it makes me sincere not only to my own cause but also it gives me better standing with my peers (so to speak).

This is where we concluded the interview the House of Lords bell rang but there was not a need for Lord Ali to return as he had answered more than my questions I was very impressed with his openness, dedication and humble personality. I hope you enjoyed reading Lord Ali's interview as much as I enjoyed talking to him.